


I Do, I Do

by aisle_one



Series: After the Credits [4]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), SPECTRE (2015), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Banter, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-08 07:49:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5489342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisle_one/pseuds/aisle_one
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond and Q get married--but not just yet.  </p><p>Written in vignettes.  Follows <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5473919%22">it's all right, if you want to come back</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5454587">Interlude</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Vows (i)

**Author's Note:**

> I blame the holiday season for my divergence to fluff. Not my usual, but so much fun to write. Hope you enjoy!

“It was terribly lonely before.”

“Before?”

“This.” Q wags a finger between him and Bond. “Us, I mean.”

Bond looks at Q in surprise, which is no surprise to Q at all. Their conversations don’t usually go this way. But the exercise of writing their vows has Q thoughtful.

“It’s true,” Q continues. “But I wasn't conscious of it. Not then. I didn’t _feel_ lonely.” And maybe lonely isn’t the right word. Q was, still is, accustomed to being alone, at work and outside of it. The former kept him busy, long hours at the office that didn’t leave much time for play. Not that Q needed it or even wanted it. He enjoyed the occasional night out, a day spent at the farmer’s market, or a few hours at his neighborhood gallery, but he preferred quiet. No plans, no obligations. He liked his sofa most, an old relic that drew cat hairs like velcro so that Q gave up brushing it to pristine long ago. An upkeep grooming here and there, and on it Q sat for hours, watching telly or fiddling on his laptop or trying to beat his time solving a Rubik’s Cube—currently at 3.96 seconds, thank you very much. Tea on the coffee table and two ginger tabbies—Fred and George Weasley—taking turns warming his feet. iPod shuffling Philip Glass in the background. It was a lovely life. More than adequate.

So upon further thought, Q rephrases, “It was terribly, erm, stable. Before.”

“What I think you’re saying is that I brought excitement to your life? Passion. Intrigue. Drama.”

Q smiles wryly. “Something like that.” Fred winds through his feet and nips the back of an ankle. Q winces and gently prods him in Bond’s direction. “Go bother your Papa.”

“No,” Bond says, turning serious. “I am not.”

“Oh, but you are. I’ve already changed their names on the papers. Fred and George Weasley-Bond. Have a nice ring to them, don’t they?”

Bond looks at him curiously. “Are you going to change yours?”

“Mine?”

“Your name.”

“Oh.” Q hasn’t actually given it much thought. Does he want that? Does Bond? “Did you want me to?”

Bond shrugs. “Only if you do. Or—” the mischievous grin returns “—we could hyphenate our titles. I’d go by ‘Bond, James Bond, Agent 007-Quartermaster.”

“Although a lovely idea, I’m not sure that M would react well to what would essentially amount to your unilateral promotion. Besides, it would confuse the minions.” Who are plenty confused as it is, already believing they should partially report to Bond, and that doesn’t need encouraging. “Anyhow, it would be a huge inconvenience. An actual name change, I mean. We’d have to change everything, too. Bank information, social security, medical records, our insurance. It’d be a nightmare.”

“And here I thought we were having a romantic moment.”

Q nudges Bond with his foot, or what Bond likes to describe as Q giving him a love tap. “We are.” He gestures to the pad Bond had been scribbling on, reminding him that indeed they are currently steeped in romance. “What’ve you got?”

“I thought it was supposed to be a surprise.”

“We’re booked for thirty minutes, no exceptions, and you know Eve will show up late. That’ll leave us what? Twenty minutes, if we’re lucky. You can’t ramble on and on.” Which is the point of the exercise. As taskmaster, it is Q’s job to ensure the ceremony keeps to time. Their vows must be succinct. Moving, lyrical, and deeply profound, but also succinct. Precise. Orchestrated like an exit from the eighteenth floor of a burning building, as Q had recently accomplished with the very man before him—4.23 minutes, thank you very much. He extends a hand. “Give it over.” 

Bond frowns at him, but complies. “I’m not the rambler in this relationship.”

And if Q needed more proof, the three short sentences Bond had written provides it:

_You are my best friend. I don’t want anyone else. And you’ve got the sexiest bum I’ve ever seen (naked)._

Q presses his lips together. Nevertheless, the grin escapes. “Are the parentheses around naked meant to qualify your statement? Meaning, have you seen sexier bums that were _not_ naked, but that mine is the sexiest naked?”

“Both.”

“You’ve seen sexier non-naked bums or mine is the sexiest of them all?”

“Darling,” Bond says, leaning in and pinching the subject of their discussion. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re trying to distract me.”

“Is it working?”

“Pinch a little harder.” Bond does—too hard. Q yelps and smacks him. “All right, mister. Anyway, you can’t say that.”

“Why not?”

“Because Eve will be there and Tanner and the minions, and—” It occurs to Q that their entire guest list is made up of MI6 staff. They have no family. Parents are dead. Bond is an only child. Q has two siblings—a brother and a sister—but to them they have only each other. To them, Q is dead. A condition of his promotion. And Q realizes—it had been lonely. Life had been full and rich and more than adequate, but it had also been lonely.

“We’ll become family,” Q says, linking his hands with Bond’s.

Bond smiles. “We already are.”


	2. The Vows (ii)

Bond examines the page covered in Q's scribbling. It’s a chaotic mess of slashed sentences, tiny notes in margins, and words underlined or circled or both. He peers closer at a particularly viciously slashed statement.

“You had me at hello?” Bond looks at Q unbelievingly. “Did I really?”

Q shakes his head and points at the emphatically underlined notes next to the crossed out statement. They say: _No, he didn’t. At hello, you wanted to punch him in the balls._

“Well, that’s a bit harsh.”

“Water under the bridge,” Q says, waving his hands. “Blah, blah, blah. I eventually warmed to you.”

“Couldn’t resist my charms, you mean? Is that what you wrote here?” Bond points to yet another obliterated sentence, the word “charm” being the sole survivor of the massacre. Q mutters something about “prince” and “knight” and “bullshit rubbish imbecilic nonsense.”

At the mention of bullshit, rubbish, imbecilic nonsense, Bond notices that the words pepper the page, creating a graffiti like pattern. “Is that your rating system?” Bond asks, as next to yet another casualty— _You are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night._ —it says _rubbish_ , and it’s circled.

“I think that’s quite nice, though. Isn’t it true?” Bond could have said the same. Q is certainly the last person he wants to talk to at the end of the day, and at the start when he wakes.

“That’s beside the point. It’s not mine.”

“What’s not yours?”

“That,” Q says, pointing to the statement. “I didn’t write it. I mean, I wrote it down, but I didn’t think of it. It’s not original.”

“Where did you get it from?” 

Q mumbles something undecipherable. 

“Sorry, what was that?”

“When Harry Met Sally!” Q exclaims. 

Bond draws a blank. His face must show it because Q rolls his eyes in exasperation.

“We watched it three nights ago. Or I did.”

And Bond had slept through it, as he had through Titanic, Sleepless in Seattle, Jerry McGuire. The list of movies is returning to him. They had made up the marathon bingeing that Q had insisted was a necessary precursor exercise to their current one. _To get the wheels turning._ Have them in the proper state of mind. It had absolutely nothing to do with Q actually wanting to watch the movies, or to be happily manipulated by their saccharine sweetness. Oh, no. Q isn't actually a sap, thank you very much.

“You cribbed all of these?” Bond says, running his hand down the page. “Why?”

“Because inventing poetic declarations of love is not exactly in my wheelhouse of skills.”

“It doesn’t have to be poetic. Just say how you feel.”

“Like you’ve the sexiest bum I’ve ever seen naked?”

“Exactly.” Bond grins, but it fades quickly when he realizes that Q’s frustration is serious. Affection wells up. He strokes Q’s cheek. “Darling, it’s fine. Whatever you say, however you say it. I’ll be pleased no matter what.”

“But it has to be memorable.” 

Q rakes a hand through his hair, further disturbing the already scraggly nest. Then the hand skims down the back of his neck, across his right shoulder, and idles at a patch of scabbed skin. The last is a giveaway, an unconscious tell, and it causes an old conversation to surface in Bond’s mind:

_”Our hands accidentally brushed,” Q wheezes out, his breathing coarse and rushed as if he had been running. Perhaps he had been, in the nightmare. Bond is rubbing circles over his back. "As I was handing you the mug. It was so ordinary. Tea for a colleague—a friend. But then you touched my face.” Q demonstrates exactly where, and how. Two fingers dent his cheek fleetingly. “I kept thinking of that. And our bickering.” He laughs. “And those nights you came over, that time you had a roast waiting for me . . . I kept thinking of them. There. When I was—”_

Being beaten, tortured, humiliated. Dying. They were what had pulled Q from the temptation to succumb. Ordinary, accidentally defining moments.

“We deserve it, don’t you think?” Q continues, slipping a hand into Bond’s. 

Bond nods, squeezing Q’s hand. “I do.”

_ 

A week later the vows are still unwritten, but the exercise is deemed to be continued when Bond is urgently shuttled to Budapest. He has a spare moment in his hotel room and has the sleek, silver pen Q had tucked in his suit pocket poised over a notepad.

 _You complete me,_ he writes. And as if the pen had been programmed to identify rubbish, bullshit, imbecilic nonsense, it comes to life, spinning in Bond’s hand. He stares at it, contemplates throwing it out of the window. But Q had said, “No, no, it is _not_ an exploding pen.”

It isn’t. It’s a talking pen.

Q’s voice filters through a hidden speaker, as clear and crisp as if it had been designed for a concert hall:

 _I hope you’ll forgive my lack of originality. Because I won’t say anything that hasn’t been said before and said better. Things like: I love you even when you look sick and disgusting, and we're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you, all of you, you and me every day. Because you make me want to be a better man. And because I am yours. I am actually yours, and I am yours more and more each day. As you are mine. To have, to hold. To cherish. In sickness and in health. Even when I really, really hate you, because I will still really, really love you. Even then. Because to me, you are perfect._

Tears spring in Bond’s eyes. But because his husband-to-be, while a bonafide sap, also can’t stand prolonging the sentimental, the recording is followed by an image that shoots from the tip of the pen. It's a hologram--of Q swathed in white, face partially obscured by a hood. By George Lucas, the man had done it. A lightsaber is surely on the horizon.

Q bends at the knees, raises his hands pleadingly, and recites: “Agent 007. You serve our Queen and country. I beg you to honor their equipment, including yourself, and return them intact. I regret that I'm unable to present this request to you in person. But duties require me here. Also, I’m afraid the doctor refused to issue me another prescription for Xanax, and you know how I get during a flight without it. I have placed information vital to your mission and survival in this pen. You will know how to retrieve it, when the time comes. Here is a hint: I lied. About the pen. Use it in a desperate hour. And return to me, 007. Return to me.”

And Bond does—with the pen. Intact and in one piece.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That Star Wars reference had to sneak its way in there. May the force be with you on this Christmas Day and every day. Happy holidays to all!


End file.
